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Relationship Compatibility

Ddsb11
Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
edited February 2021 in Debate Club
A little background information-

I’m a Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed female, American. My husband is Asian, has dark features, about my height, close to my weight, and his family fled the Khmer Rouge (he is 1st generation American). We are both in our early 30’s.

In another thread it was commented that marrying your race and culture creates more compatibility. Another poster said race is just aesthetics and that proximity, as well as personality, are what make relationships compatible. I didn’t want to derail the thread so thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss, as I myself am in an interracial marriage.

I have found people have incredibly strong opinions about what they think makes a relationship compatible, and we are subject to comments and questions nearly everyday about our relationship. Mostly it’s when my husband is at the hospital and shows a picture of us, his associates are astounded I’m a blonde white female.

Because of him I have learned about the world of prearranged marriages, and how common they still are. I’ve learned many new customs, food preparations, and 2 new languages. But in no way did I feel these differences meant we weren’t compatible. It was our outlook on life that deciphered that.

Any thoughts and personal experiences? The more I dive into this the more I realize there is a world of belief systems that are being passed down, and I’d like to know what they are and why you believe them.
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Replies

  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    MaltedTea wrote: »
    It's the environment the two of you are in, I suppose. I've dated interacially, cross-culturally and inter-religiously (sic?) my entire life. But then again, I've lived in diversified urban cities my entire life too.

    If there were comments from others, I either didn't hear them or didn't pay attention 🤷🏿‍♀️

    Personally, I think having a sense of open-mindedness is one way to learn about the world and your place within it.

    Lastly, I've yet to be convinced attraction is bound by one kind of similarity (ie. we have to look alike, or pray to the same Dude In the Ether, or be deeply familiar/invested with one another's cultural history and heritage).

    Same pov... you just said it better 😍
  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    edited February 2021
    gigius72 wrote: »
    In my country we have a saying: "wives and cows only from your villages".
    I'm sure if you go back a few centuries that really made sense... Or people used to think so.
    Nowadays I don't think so. There is a wider knowledge of other people's traditions. So you know what you are getting into when you start a relationship.
    I'm Italian and my wife American. She doesn't speak my language and I had to learn hers. She's very tall clear skin, I'm very short with Mediterranean skin color. She believes in a religion, I'm atheist. Completely different backgrounds as you can see.
    We've been married for 20 years and our relationship is still working great. Sure we've had our differences sometimes like in every relationship, but that was not due to the fact that we come from 2 different worlds. I fell in love with her personality, not with the fact that she eats turkey on Thanksgiving day and I don't even have a Thanksgiving day.

    Your quote reminds me of a conversation I had with an acquaintance not long ago. They asked about my relationship and what my husbands parents thought of him marrying me. I said I didn’t really ask, as I didn’t know it would be a problem. They laughed and said they still ask their family permission to go out for the evening, and they’re in their 30’s, Wow. Turns out their marriages are mostly arranged as well. There’s a whole world out there I didn’t know existed, and my marriage is surfacing so many opinions and belief systems I thought were mostly gone.
  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    edited February 2021
    msalicia07 wrote: »
    A little background information-

    I’m a Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed female, American. My husband is Asian, has dark features, about my height, close to my weight, and his family fled the Khmer Rouge (he is 1st generation American). We are both in our early 30’s.

    In another thread it was commented that marrying your race and culture creates more compatibility. Another poster said race is just aesthetics and that proximity, as well as personality, are what make relationships compatible. I didn’t want to derail the thread so thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss, as I myself am in an interracial marriage.

    I have found people have incredibly strong opinions about what they think makes a relationship compatible, and we are subject to comments and questions nearly everyday about our relationship. Mostly it’s when my husband is at the hospital and shows a picture of us, his associates are astounded I’m a blonde white female.

    Because of him I have learned about the world of prearranged marriages, and how common they still are. I’ve learned many new customs, food preparations, and 2 new languages. But in no way did I feel these differences meant we weren’t compatible. It was our outlook on life that deciphered that.

    Any thoughts and personal experiences? The more I dive into this the more I realize there is a world of belief systems that are being passed down, and I’d like to know what they are and why you believe them.

    The bolded part is a racist assertion, you can safely dismiss people espousing the idea that you can't be compatible with someone of a different racial or ethnic background. Maybe that person has trouble relating to people who are different from them, because they have a lot of racist programming to overcome, but it is absolutely not the case that all white people are inherently more compatible with all other white people over people of other racial backgrounds just by virtue of being white, or whatever.

    That said, everyone has preferences and those are OK, the heart wants what it wants and all that. I think as long as you're approaching a relationship seeing your potential partner as a whole individual human person, not making assumptions about how they are and what they like due to their race, you're in the clear.

    So true, and these beliefs are just more prominent than I realized, being the modern woman that I am. Granted, I don’t believe the person making the comment saw it as racist, but that’s how it made me feel. Preferences are fine, we all have them. But to spread belief systems that aren’t true, I have to ask why and hopefully we can bridge the gap in this thread.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,646 Member
    msalicia07 wrote: »
    I'm South Asian ( India ) ( also lived in Cambodia for a few years! My mom taught in Phnom Penh at Wat Than! ) And lived in several countries my whole life... ended up marrying a white Southern gentleman 😄... gurrrrrlll the amount of hoopla that was thrown at me from both Asia and America united has made my skin thicker than a hippo's!! We live in the South ( heh!) so I get startled looks ALL THE TIME. But... for every weird look of disbelief I get , I also get acceptance and love. So...as much of a struggle it has been to try to fit in here in the US for the past decade...I'd say I have a handful of true friends...and that's all I need.

    Cambodia huh?! No kidding! Wow, I love that. We are currently in the south as well (temporarily) and it sounds like we are having mirrored experiences. People are generally great to us, it’s what I hear from my husband when I’m not around that floors me. Fortunately we have thick skin and a zen attitude towards life, but I think individually people are inherently good. It’s the masses that I don’t get from time to time. I just didn’t realize how much people would comment, whether good or bad. To me, this was just like any other relationship, but special of course, because he was the one.

    QFT. 💜
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    My fiancé is Asian. I am Black. We live in NYC. You would think it would be a forward thinking place to live, however we encountered more racism from his family, ex friends and random people here than anywhere.

    Sadly, at least from the people I know in interracial relationships, families can be some of the most opposed.
  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    edited February 2021
    I think it depends massively on where you are in the world, and how prejudiced and/or parochial the people around you are. I grew up in Canada in a very progressive community, all of my friends and family are extremely open minded to all people, and racism of any kind has been looked down on since I was little. I as also blond and Caucasian. I met and fell in love with an Australian guy whose family on one side comes from Zanzibar, of Persian decent, and he is of course a lot darker than I am, and looks to be Turkish perhaps. While he is an atheist, much of his family remains fairly devout muslim. None of this has ever been an issue for either of us with our own families, and we lived in Canada and the UK for years with literally zero comment from anyone ever. He has told me that he faced racism growing up in small town Australia, but he said it was largely just ignorance, and he still has a super strong group of friends from his home town. We ended up moving to his Australian home town several years ago.....and WOW, the comments we get, the racism, the small minded-ness. It's astounding. People don't direct any sort of targeted attacks at us, we have generally slid quite well in to the community and have a lot of friends, but sometimes really hateful anti muslim rhetoric will pour forth from someone I don't expect it to, because they either have forgotten or don't realise that that's his family they are talking about out. And as we have 2 little girls now, it makes me FURIOUS as that is where they come from, that's their ancestry being dragged, and this isn't something I had ever experienced. I love Australia and I love the people, they are so genuine and open and welcoming, but I have blocked a lot of my hubbies friends on Facebook because I just can't handle the racism and intolerance.

    I’m so bummed, I had written out a long response to you yesterday and I lost the whole message 🤦🏼‍♀️ I just wanted to basically say how your story resonates with me. We too are from pretty progressive places, but when we moved it was just different. I realize how naive I was, not that it’s all bad at all! In fact most of the questions we get are to exclaim how adorable we are, or how unique we look, in a complimentary way. I notice most of what is said in a negative tone or context is to my husband when I’m not around. Don’t know what’s up with that! He’s so kind he lets it roll off his back. I feel like a mamma bear sometimes when he tells me the comments people make regarding his race, or that he must have money because he caught me. Either way, I don’t feel this makes our compatibility less than that of a same race couple. I think it’s just a different set of concerns than others might have. If anything it has brought us closer together. I hope it’s the same for you two.
  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    My fiancé is Asian. I am Black. We live in NYC. You would think it would be a forward thinking place to live, however we encountered more racism from his family, ex friends and random people here than anywhere.

    Sadly, at least from the people I know in interracial relationships, families can be some of the most opposed.

    This!
  • Ddsb11
    Ddsb11 Posts: 607 Member
    My fiancé is Asian. I am Black. We live in NYC. You would think it would be a forward thinking place to live, however we encountered more racism from his family, ex friends and random people here than anywhere.

    Sadly, at least from the people I know in interracial relationships, families can be some of the most opposed.

    I agree. Luckily we had no problems cutting people out of our lives. He hasn't spoken to his toxic sister in over 10 years now. His parents live close to us but we hardly see them.

    Someone recently referred to us as #whasain, I had never heard #whasain or #blasain before. I looked on Instagram and sure enough! Some really beautiful families, no question 💯